Come Closer
by 9aza
Summary: G1 AU. Several years after the Great War ends a father must decide Cybertron's fate, a child comtemplates whether or not to open the gate, and a monster lies in wait. Warnings: Death, violence, and subtle slash. Rated for safety. Now with a revamped first chapter.
1. Part 1

A/N (2014): This story is special to me. It was originally thought it up back in the summer of 2011 and I have been thinking of it constantly during its three year hiatus. The plot of the story has never changed over the years, though some of the motivations behind the characters have actually developed greatly (though whether or not it's included in the story really depends on how good my writing is. Don't hold your breath for something complex.). Simple story or not, I still hope everyone does enjoy this little story of mine.

Thank you **Knightryder007** for betaing. And a thank you to my friends for listening to me ramble on and on about this story for the past few years. Finally, thanks **XxFluffypuppyxX** for giving me the go ahead to post this fic.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Transformers franchise.

**Come Closer**

Part 1

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

Amongst the haze of bad recharging and unending anxiety, Starscream moaned painfully as he slowly sat up from the hard berth he lay on, sweeping his dulling red optics over to the loud spark monitor that had kept him up many months as his youngest Seekerlet, a tiny sparkling with dark armor and pale faceplates fought for his short life, his emerald optics tuned so far down they seemed almost completely offline, a thought that had wracked Starscream to his very spark. After countless of Cybertron's best doctors and medics had watched over the dying sparkling, repeating over and over again that the survival of the newspark was almost impossible, Starscream had been reduced to a complete mess, berth ridden will worry. The thought of his youngest sparkling being able to die at any second was something that had been hard to swallow at first, but as it sank in, so did the void in Starscream's spark.

"Please...don't give up. Ever. I gave up everything for you...and I have no other route...you must survive..." The months were passing by slowly, and still the Seeklet was not strong enough to survive without the machines plugged into his systems. He could barely squeak when he wanted his creator's attention. The poor thing didn't even have a name yet, Starscream's attention completely consumed by the sinkhole of desperation to find the doctor that could heal the tiny Seekerlet.

If the War was still going, and if Starscream still followed the old Decepticon ways, the Seeklet would be considered a lost cause and not worth all this expensive care. Instead, it hurt the older Seeker to know how fragile and helpless his son was. It hurt even worse when every day, the insensitive mechs and femmes, seemingly unaware of the depression and spark hurt of Starscream seeing his creation perishing right before him, would ask that horrid question: 'Why not pull the plug?'

Admittedly, it may be considered a mercy to end the Seeklet's constant struggles, but Starscream could not and would not let his creation die. Too much has been lost to give up now. Like his el- No. He couldn't think about _that_ loss right now. Not yet.

•••

When he onlined his optics for the first time, there was a bright light that nearly blinded him, almost plunging him once again into the void of blackness he had gotten used to. Thankfully, the light faded as quickly as it had appeared as he began to take in his surroundings. Everything around him looked large and distorted, too large almost. Almost as if...he had been reduced to the size of a sparkling. One such large, distorted object, an imposing blur came closer and reached for him with wide open servos. He squirmed once in panic as he was closed within its grasp, lifted high into the air until he was held close against the body of the huge object. The warmth radiating from the obscured object somehow soothed him, despite the alarm bells in his mind trying to resist, and he stopped his struggling. His vision soon cleared and he was finally able to clearly see the being that held him. The large one had large sheets of metal protruding from his back and a dark face with crimson optics that looked upon the little one, himself, with a kindly look on its faceplate.

•••

"You're finally coming home, Nimbus," Starscream murmured to his creation, relief and happiness evident in his voice, a bittersweet joy flooding his ravaged systems. "Everything is finally going to be okay."

The newly named Nimbus only cooed quietly at his creator's words, taking solace in the soft Vosian words spoken by his creator.

•••

Starscream stroked Nimbus's metallic cheek as the little one recharged in the nursery with his older brother for the first time. It hadn't taken much effort to get the Seeklet to enter recharge as Nimbus was less fussy than his eldest brother had been years ago. The elder Seeker sighed wistfully in remembrance of those long nights and turned to leave his two smallest younglings with their dreams when he froze. Vivid colors began splashing around in his viewpoint, shaping and recolouring the world immediately around him as he felt a strong dizziness pull him to the ground and further down into unconsciousness.

_Starscream was no longer in the sky blue room containing his creations when he awoke, instead finding himself standing in the middle of city, one resembling the pristine classy sheen of Iacon. In fact, without further analysis of minor differences such as inhabitants and buildings, the Seeker would've merely dismissed this city as Iacon. But, almost instantly, Starscream saw a major disparity between this city and the capital of Cybertron. A major disparity._

_There was no one in this town!_

_"Hello?" As soon as he Seeker uttered the phrase, multiple screaming mechs and femmes, along with burning and destroyed objects began materializing out of nowhere in a mist, most of the mysterious bots yelling and running past him, even through him somehow, all desperate to escape the growing flames which leapt and licked at their backs, growing tall as they fed on the crumbling buildings and twisted frames of the bots that had failed to escape the rapidly approaching inferno. so desperate that family members and companions that had fallen were quickly abandoned and were soon trampled upon by the hysterical masses. Everything was happening so fast that Starscream didn't even have time to understand the magnitude of the hysteria breaking around him in his unfamiliar situation as it grew both in intensity and volume. The ground beneath the Seeker began to shake and Starscream soon realized that the Cybertronians weren't just trying to get away from the fires. Crawling out of large cracks in the earth were monsters of various shapes and sizes, some adorned with long blades and proper weapons, others with just their natural weapons such as huge claws and body spikes. Some took to the skies and began snatching civilians as they fled, flying high up in the sky to feast on their catch. The monsters would tear the limbs off of their live captives, their screams a macabre melody accompanying the rain of Energon spewing from their torn apart shells, covering the screeching masses on the ground. Starscream could see the horrific creatures sink their huge fangs deep into their screaming victims, tearing out internal mechanisms and sparks, which were instantly swallowed up into the void of their insect-like mouthpieces. Starscream winced every time a scream was emitted by a victim of the weird monsters, flinching and shuddering violently. It was not just the air assault that shocked him. All around him, the land hunters were at full force chasing the grounded victims down, immediately slicing deep into their chassis with their serrated claws and fangs to spill the precious E__nergon from their delicate fuel lines. The landscape, in a matter of minutes, had transformed into a fire-ravaged wasteland, covered in huge spatters of Energon and scrap metal. The attackers continue to hack away at the innocent victims, roaring and snarling in sick glee. Starscream's attention was again captured, this time by a flying monster suddenly swooping down, snatching a crying mechling from his creator's grasp, eliciting sparks and long claw marks as it's talons sunk effortlessly into the soft metal of the doomed sparkling. The mechling struggled to get free, but the monster's hold was too strong for it, tenfold almost of the bitlet's own. Unlike its brethren, the monster did not immediately kill the mechling, instead flying to a crowd of its flightless counterparts. They quickly took notice of the mechling in the flyer's arms and were sent into frenzy, claws and teeth, armour and limbs smashing into each other in their frantic death dance, closely resembling the slashing and grinding of a refuse processor. The flyer smirked with a purely demonic quality and lets it's talons go slack, dropping the mechling into the awaiting claws and fangs of the mob. Starscream turned away from the mechling's screams, almost lost in the clashing and slashing of the feral monster flock. It was a horrifying sight. Not even during the height of the Great War were soldiers so vicious toward the enemy forces during battle, much less fleeing civilians. While this massacre continued, Starscream found that he couldn't move from where he stood. He panicked, thinking at any moment one of the creatures would notice his presence and end his miserable life in a flash. However, it never happened. It was as if the creatures couldn't see him. Was he a ghost? Starscream didn't understand how that was possible, but he was relieved for the safeguard to his life nonetheless._

_This was all before a voice, loud and clear, cried out encouraging the creatures to keep going, to keep viciously destroying all that they saw. Starscream saw the owner of the powerful bass voice as the mech stepped into his view and to say the Seeker was shocked would have been a grave understatement. The voice did not belong to one of the monsters, but to a mech, and not even a menacing looking one at that. The mech was a newly full-grown Seeker, lithe and a tad small in stature, which seemed out of place with the savage creatures. what had shocked the elder Seeker, however, was the rare color of the mech's optics. They were emerald green._

_"Just like Nimbus..." Starscream whispered in disbelief. The veridian optics scanned the area with pinpoint precision, looking for any hiding civilians. They lit up once as movement was detected. Moving quickly, the mech plunged his servos into a pile of rubble and yanked out an older grounder, frame rusted and battered. The grounder begged for mercy, but the young mech would not listen. He violently threw the old mech to the ground and remorselessly crushed the grounder's spark with his sharp claws, plunging them deep into the struggling mech's chest and releasing a torrent of escaping Energon, splashing both frames the color of death. Starscream could only shiver as the mech of death once again looked around the destruction, his optics suddenly focused on a single target. Straight ahead, right into Starscream._

_He stalked closer to his frozen prey, his long, sharp claws glistening from the fresh energon coating them from his previous kill, the pink liquid leaving a macabre trail. The energonlust was evident in his steely optics and an all-too-familiar smirk graced his face, one that many had seen on Starscream's own face during the War. His servo rose up, with razor claws fully bared, ready to strike down the elder Seeker._

_"Farewell Creator," the mech sneered._

_His claws went straight for Starscream's spark chamber, darkness and pain washing over the targeted Seeker._

Starscream was gasping as his vents struggled to intake cool air to fan his overheating systems. His servos were shaking as he looked at his surroundings. The sky blue walls, the colorful toys, and the small white cribs; he was somehow back in the nursery. He quickly looked inside both cribs and found his creations still recharging peacefully, not a trace of stress on their faceplates. It was as if he had never left the room...of course. It had all been a horrible, terrible dream. Starscream vigorously shook his helm. Of course he hadn't left! A dream! Just a dream, the Seeker told himself

But what he had seen... It had all seemed so real...

No, it couldn't have been real. He was just exhausted. Yes, that was it. He hadn't had a decent recharge in months and his processor was starting to slip because of it. Starscream left the nursery and headed back to his room, hoping this would be the first and last time he saw anything like that delusion.

How wrong was he.

* * *

><p>AN: So, what do you think?


	2. Part 2

A/N: So... obviously this story isn't quite as dead as many of you may have thought. For those of you who have been waiting for this update, I suggest you go back and look at the first chapter again. My lovely beta, **Knightryder007**, gave it a serious makeover.

Vorn = 83 Earth years

Disclaimer: I do not own the Transformers franchise.

**Come Closer**

Part 2

1,204 vorns later…

_Starscream struggled to free himself from a monster's vice-like grasp as he was dragged painfully toward the Cybertronian version of an iron maiden by his broken arm, the beast too strong for him. The seeker screamed in excruciating pain as his arm was twisted violently by his captive, more of his internal cables breaking and snapping. In the corner of his optic, he could see emerald green optics in the darkness of the prisoner's chambers, glittering with manic delight as they witnessed the elder Seeker's coming doom. _Nimbus,_ his processor whispered._

_No, that can't be right._

_Why would his son be here? It just...wasn't right..._

__The murderer Starscream was captive to couldn't be Nimbus; those optics can't be his, the Seeker convinced himself. _Starscream turned his thoughts away from the other Seeker and toward the beast currently dragging him, sharp pangs of pain wracking his frame. He needed to get the frag of here. He quickly self-scanned himself, seeking a weapon hidden in himself the monsters may not have noticed, his blaster and Energon sword robbed by the monsters, many ecstatic at bearing new arms. Desperate, he remembered the only weapon he had on his body. A weapon, so obvious yet so easily forgotten as a mere part of Starscream._

_He at least had to try. Readying himself, Starscream dug his long, sharp digits, his only remaining, weapon deep into his captor's arm until it bled, long gashes pouring out the thick, impure blood of the monster. However, as much damage he had caused, his actions were pointless; the pain didn't even seem to make Starscream's captor flinch. It was as if Starscream's captors knew his claws were useless against their vastly superior skin, a cruel joke left by the creatures of the dark to taunt the unfortunate Seeker._

_The younger Seeker only chuckled as the beast lobbed Starscream from the broken arm it held, the trapped victim screeching as he flew involuntarily into the Energon-splattered iron maiden meeting the spikes within, his delicate wings torn to ribbons as the spikes on the backboard ripped deep into the appendages and his back, impaling him on the device. Managing to hang onto a shred of his wavering consciousness, Starscream's final image was that of gleaming emerald optics and a large paw closing the heavy doors of the deathly contraption, rusted hinges screaming out as the spikes on the door closed in of the heaving chassis of Starscream._

With a scream and a scrambled gasp, scratching furiously as he felt something grip around his helm then promptly letting go, Starscream awoke to find himself sitting up on the berth in his well-lit room. Before he could allow himself to relax, soft sobbing had caught his attention, the seeker swiveling his helm towards the doorway where the sobbing originated from. In the doorframe, his only daughter stood, holding her bleeding right arm close to her chest. He glanced down and he found her energon staining his servo, the majority of it on his digits. His daughter, having done her duty promptly left without a word.

•••

Nimbus's home was quieter than usual when his systems came online that solar-cycle. Usually the Seekerling, now the equivalent of an eight-year-old human, would online to the sounds of his elder sister bustling around their home, cleaning and scrubbing what she could before walking him and their adopted brother to school. Nimbus didn't pay the silence much mind as he forced himself out of berth in order to go wake his probably still recharging brother. Bounding into the larger room of his brother, a non-Seeker flyer only a few vorns older than Nimbus himself, the younger seeker instantly ran over to the berth where his brother was currently recharging, his chassis slowly rising and sinking with each ventilation.

"Hey! Come on! Wake up!" Nimbus chirped, watching his brother stirred as his systems roused at the sound of his voice.

"Ugh... I'm still recharging, Nim. Go away..."

"Come on, get up!" Nimbus shook his brother, who annoyedly swatted at his brother. Nimbus continued to shake him until the flyer sat up, still groggy as his systems fully woke up. Once the adopted flyer was online, the two young mechs headed to the main dining room where two small cubes of Energon were found waiting on the table, in the same place their sister always left them. They took their usual seats at the table and began enjoying their meal quietly, chatting about their favourite pastimes and about upcoming school events. After what seemed to be a few astro-seconds, their sister and Seeker creator, Starscream, appeared; neither one spoke, not even in greeting. Starscream's wings dropped down, color dull and optics sullen. Their older sister had dried coolant around her droopy optics. She held her right arm protectively, letting go for a second which caused her brother to stare. Nimbus glanced up at his older sister and his optics widened at the new welds on her forearm, covering what appeared to be two long, deep scratches. Before he could say anything, she noticed his staring and gave the mechling a minute shake of her helm. Nimbus grimaced, but kept his mouth shut. He had seen his Grounder creator with similar injuries on mornings his Seeker creator had to be forcibly awakened, from nightmares, he had been told. Really, it shouldn't have been that surprising that his sister was hurt from doing the same. But Nimbus, concerned for his sibling was anyway.

The walk to school was quiet and awkward, with neither Nimbus nor his older brother knowing what to say their sister to get her to smile again. She'd never exactly been the cheery type, but usually she was much more lively when it was just the three of them, initiating conversation and friendly banter. Honestly, Nimbus felt sort of relieved when she finally left them at the entrance with a half-hearted goodbye to go to work.

School today had been a fair trip, not bad, yet not good either. In fact, Nimbus's favorite time of the day had been whenever the class was in session; mostly because he was able to sit next to his big brother and work with him during group assignments. The issue Nimbus had with school was the break time they were given on the schoolyard: the other younglings had a habit of avoiding him the moment they left the classroom. He didn't know why; they just didn't talk to him, look at him, or even bump into him by accident. It was almost as if he had some sort of repelling aura to him. People would quiet and change their paths if they were walking towards him, others would push by him with extreme malice. Nimbus had no idea why people detested him so, although he had once thought it was because of his creator's past work... Nimbus broke his train of thought as a voice he knew rang out loud.

"I'll see you back in class, Nim!" his brother called out as he followed the other younglings toward the climbing bars.

"'Kay!" Nimbus gave him a small smile and waved him goodbye. The smile slipped away the moment his brother looked away. Being left alone isn't so bad; he could've been picked on relentlessly by bullies like some of the others, such as a young femme, an oddball of another class. She was mainly bullied for her armour, a shiny, expensive pink and blue medley that somehow did not settle well with the other sparklings, perhaps out of jealousy. Nimbus was different, however. Instead of having unwanted attention, he had no attention at all. But that was just it, wasn't it? No one paid him any mind outside of class, except for those few moments when his brother let him know where he was going to be. When was the last time the both of them played together at school? Nimbus couldn't remember, and felt his optics filling with coolant at the thought. He immediately stopped himself from letting the tears slip out and looked for a quiet spot to play with his bag of marbles. Nimbus had nothing to cry about. He and his brother spent plenty of time together at home. It was only natural that his brother would want to spend time with other people for at least part of the day, right?

Nimbus sighed. That still didn't change the fact that the separation would be easier to bear if Nimbus was allowed to have other friends too. The bell rang. Hoards of students ran inside to the classrooms, and Nimbus wearily followed suit.

•••

Supper was a quiet affair in Nimbus's home on the best of days. The little seeker hated suppertime and he knew his older siblings hated it too. He could tell by his brother's rigid winglets and his sister's avoidance of optic contact with anyone at the table. On this particular day, a heavy, uptight air kept everyone bored yet alert. On the worst of days, supper escalated to angry shouting, shattered plates, and at one point, a broken table. His creators weren't looking at each other either. Neither were they asking about the other's day. On the best of days, there would be civil small talk. Though this silence was the norm for their family. Once again, Nimbus wondered why they even bothered eating together. The sparkling tiredly swirled his Energon, sipping it up with one gulp and wordlessly left the table for his berthroom.

At least today had been one of the better days.

•••

_Nimbus did not know where he was when his optics first onlined, but he knew he was no longer in his room by the amount of light filtering into his young optics. His optics looked up towards the sky, hoping to find the constellations his Seeker creator had shown him, trying to establish his position. Instead of seeing familiar stars and kind skies, he only saw the high ceiling of a cavern. He shivered, and thanked Primus that at least this place seemed large enough to pretend there was a sky. The Seekerling tore his optics away from the ceiling and sat up, high alert. It was then he took in the rest of his surroundings._

_"Whoa..." It was scarily dark where he was, but there was just enough luminance to see the terrain, where Nimbus immediately wished he was blind. The Seeker squinted and buried his helm into his servos as he saw the most horrific scene he had ever seen in his short life. Upon the very dirt he had lied upon were stains of the blood of many aliens, the Energon of his own people included, a macabre rainbow to pink, red, blue and green. All the plant life were awful parodies of the pictures he had seen in school, their branches and vines holding blackened, rotting limbs. Nimbus screamed as he noticed corpses of all races littered the ground like piles of Earthen autumn leaves, their faces twisted into agonized, painful expressions. Once his audios came back online Nimbus heard screams coming from the distance, hundreds, thousands, maybe even more; he couldn't tell. He was too terrified. The Seekerling climbed onto his pedes and ran and ran, his little spark pulsating wildly within its chamber from primal fear. Nimbus knew he had to find a way out of this nightmarish place or at the very least, put some distance between himself and the screaming._

_His emerald optics kept flitting around, continuously spying shadows prowling in the corners of his optics. How long could he run before the shadows caught him? _Not long,_ his processor whispered. The Seekerling's vision started to become blurry with unshed tears; he wanted to wake from this nightmare and to return to his home. A shriek from above tore Nimbus's focus off the threats hiding in the dark shadows. He did not stop running as he looked up; there, up in the "sky" was a winged creature with large, rusty talons and gaping, insectoid jaws filled with sharp fangs dripping with Energon and poison. The creature swooped down; its deadly intent obvious to the Seekerling. Nimbus screamed as he dived onto the hard ground, causing the creature's talons to miss their target by mere inches. He winced and cried out as he felt his fragile cockpit crack from the massive impact, but he forced himself to get up and keep running. His joints cried out in protest of the abuse. Fear was threatening to overcome Nimbus when his optics caught sight of the creature's silhouette circling above from that demonic mockery of a sky. Unfortunately, right at that moment, Nimbus tripped over a tree root and fell, his servos luckily absorbing the blow and sparing his cockpit from further damage. He was gasping and sobbing by now for he knew he was doomed._

_Strangely enough, the creature did not attack the defenseless Seekerling. Instead it flew in circles -while shrieking loudly- for a few minutes before changing direction sharply, leaving the terrified Nimbus alone. He wiped the tears from his optics with shaking servos. He was safe… For now at least. His winglets drooped at the dark but realistic, thought. Nimbus vented heavily, gathering just enough courage to retake a closer look at his surroundings. This area looked deserted; there were no wandering shadows out to get him. The spatters of lifeblood scattered randomly, the colours a macabre piece of art taunted the little Seeker, pangs of terror scoring his tiny frame. Nimbus eventually spotted a cliff face off to his right. There appeared to be a cave that had been carved into the cliff face, but oddly enough, the gated entrance of the cave was covered with chains and locks. Curiosity getting the better of him, Nimbus cautiously took a few steps closer to the cave, pointedly keeping his gaze from the noticeably large number of corpses surrounding it. He saw something shift behind the gate, but could not see what it could be. Nimbus leapt back as suddenly, huge claws reached out between the bars, swiping at and narrowly missing Nimbus, the slashing and clinking of the deadly sickles enough to make the youngling instantly back away. Nimbus was not completely unscathed, however, having stared into the creature behind the claws. A true visage of fear and death, its horrible, unending black optics a portal into Unicron himself. The optics began to get wider, bigger, until eventually it was all that Nimbus saw, enveloping him into the insane blackness of the deepest pitfalls of the Pit._

_Nimbus screamed for his life._

He sat up from his berth with tears flowing freely down his faceplates, ventilations heavy, gasping for cool air. Nimbus saw that he was back in his room; he was safe from that creature of his night terrors.

"Bad dream?" A familiar voice asked tonelessly. Nimbus turned his helm and saw his Seeker creator lazily leaning on his doorway. The Seekerling suppressed a shudder at his creator's blank expression and constantly haunted optics.

"Yes," Nimbus whispered, remembering his creator's experience with such things.

Starscream's mouth twitched and he sluggishly approached his creation's berth. "Now, now, a nightmare is nothing to be worked up about," he said with a cracked, somewhat broken smile. Nimbus knew his Seeker creator was lying through his denta; they both knew how damaging Starscream's own "nightmares" have been on the family. Nimbus quietly kept his thoughts to himself and simply nodded in agreement to the lie.

"Good," Starscream said, his servo petting Nimbus's right winglet, ignoring how his youngest creation flinched when he touched him. He tucked his petrified creation back into its berth, humming a soft Vosnian lullaby to calm Nimbus down enough to recharge. Nimbus's optics instantly began to dim, dragging him back closer to recharge. Starscream allowed his smile to fade away and quietly left the small room for his own room across the hall.

Nimbus was brought back to alertness by the argument between his creators that began moments later, once again over Starscream's refusal to recharge. Trying to block it out, he maneuvered onto his side, but felt a sharp pain in his abdomen as he did so. He examined his torso and found a hairline crack on his cockpit that hadn't been there before.

The Seekerling did not go back into recharge that night.

* * *

><p>AN: I really hope this new chapter was worth the wait. I promise the next chapter won't take another three years. Again thank you **Knightryder007** for betaing.

If you enjoyed, then please leave a review.


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